The massacre of October 7th and the ensuing wars that have exploded around the Middle East as a response, have brought to the surface a deep chasm that has been brewing within Israeli society for some years now. They have also brought to light a growing rift within the Jewish diaspora.

Division, scorn, distrust, anger, and even blind hatred are on display in the streets of Israel, in the press, online, and in the halls of the Knesset, as well as in synagogues and Jewish organizations around the world.

To be clear, for Jews, disagreement and argument are baked into our historical, cultural, and religious DNA, for better or for worse. This is a biblical fact, a Talmudic tenet, a diasporic truism, a modern-day Israel condition.

Argument can be stimulating. It can lead to intellectual rigor, deeper analysis, exploration, and inventiveness. Argumentation, however, can also lead to discomfort, endless acrimony, alienation, and division.

I have always been fascinated by, even obsessed with, this question: what are the markers, the road signs that can help explain in some way how we end up where we end up? Do such markers even exist, and are argument and disagreement a part of this process?

The Middle East offers so many complexities, so many ambiguities, conflicting narratives and competing aspirations as to dizzy and confound the most robust spiritual seeker and intellectually keen pilgrim. There is never a single answer to a question in the Middle East. Never.

There is, ultimately, one truth, but do not seek it in one place only, and never succumb to the easy answers offered up by roadside sages, ideologues, sloganeers, and thrifty merchants of platitudes.

I want to share with you a piece I wrote 14 years ago. I was angry as I wrote the piece, and so I decided not to publish it at the time.

I now feel it is important for me to offer it as one of the many possibilities to........

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